MR CUSHINGS 

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE, 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, 

IN 


BOSTON. AUGUST, 1834. 


/ 


J 


INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE, 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, 


AT THEIR 


FIFTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING, IN BOSTON, 


AUGUST, 1834. 


BY CALEB CUSHING. 



BOSTON: 

TUTTLE AND WEEKS 8 SCHOOL STREET. 

1 834 . 




INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 


Owing to the absence of the distinguished individual, 
(General Mercer of Virginia,) who was destined to fill this 
place on this occasion, the Directors of the Institute have 
imposed on me the duty of delivering the Introductory 
Discourse of the present year. This event is, in every 
point of view, matter of regret : because, while it deprives 
the opening of the session of its anticipated interest, and 
renders it necessary to substitute, in lieu of a more elaborate 
discourse, one prepared with but brief space for meditation 
or composition, — it interferes, at the same time, with a 
favorite and most valuable object of the Institute. 

In the foundation of this society, as of every one having 
extensive purposes of intellectual or moral usefulness in 
view, the concentration of thoughts and efforts from divers 
quarters, and the combination of minds of various disci- 
pline, is an all essential principle. A characteristic trait of 
the European stock, whether in Europe or America, as it 
cannot but be perceived and admitted, is advancement, pro- 
gression, improvement, change in the hope and prospect of 
a better condition. And this not so much on the part of 
governments, — which, in all times and places, more fre- 
quently resist than favor change, because the depositaries of 
power naturally clings to their own tenure of it, — but on the 


4 


part of the individual members of society, who in solitary 
meditation search out hidden truths, — maxims of ethics, 
economy and legislation, — facts in the physical sciences, — 
processes or instruments appertaining to the useful arts, — 
and who apply the discoveries or inventions thus made to 
the melioration and civilization of the world. And how is 
this end reached ? Occasionally, there enters upon the scene 
of life a man of transcendent intellect, who, lighting upon a 
happy combination of circumstances, or rather placed in it 
by an all-seeing and all-disposing power, changes the whole 
face of things by the leviathan force of one mind ; — some 
Bacon or Newton, who creates philosophy anew, — some 
Arkwright, Whitney, Fulton, Senefelder, Perkins, Davy, 
who, as with a touch of the enchanter’s wand of genius, 
gives being or impulse to a great department of knowledge 
or art, — some Gregory, Luther, or Calvin, who in the 
seclusion of his cabinet plans and accomplishes the refor- 
mation of whole nations, — some Charlemagne or Napoleon, 
who revolutionizes Christendom. But these are not the 
ordinary cases of human efficiency. In the every-day 
course of affairs, in the bounded circle wherein most men 
are destined to move, it is by the combination of their joint 
efforts, — it is by the formation of voluntary societies, made 
up of the means, time, and talents, of persons compara- 
tively feeble in the solitary individual, but strong in the 
aggregate body, — it is thus that so much of excellent and 
useful is effected in the social system of Europe and America. 

Time would fail, in seeking to recount the multitude of 

societies, — moral, scientific, literary, religious, political, 

scattered all over the great commonwealth of the civilized 
nations of Christendom. The famous fraternities of chiv- 
alry in the time of the Crusades were examples of them 
pertinent to that age ; as were the associations for the sup- 
pression of vice and crime in the Spanish Peninsula, called 
the Holy Brotherhood, at a later period. In our own time, 


5 


objects of art, literature, morals, or politics, are their ac- 
customed aim. Multitudinous as they are, it would be 
strange if some of them were not wrong in principle or per- 
verted in their application. But their usefulness in the main 
seems indisputable ; at least there are no arguments adverse 
to them in the general, saving such as tend to suppress the 
propagation of knowledge or the cultivation of virtue, and 
in effect strike at the very foundations of social union. In 
simple truth, let me reiterate, they are the means, whereby 
all of us, however humble be our condition, may participate 
in great designs, which must otherwise devolve exclusively 
on pre-eminent wealth, ability, or power. This, moreover, 
is the answer to so much “ bald unjointed chat,” which is 
abroad among us, to the prejudice of corporate enterprises of 
usefulness or gain ; for, as with joint efforts of mind, so with 
corporate investments of property ; they do but enable men 
of moderate capitals to share in great undertakings ; and 
therein lies their signal advantage for a country of enter- 
prising inhabitants and unexhausted resources like the 
United States. 

In the wide range of topics proper to the occasion, there 
is one, which passing events and pending discussions have 
served to force upon the attention, as peculiarly opportune 
to the character and objects of the Institute. What are 
the true uses of Instruction ? How much and how little of 
good or of evil does Education accomplish ? What are the 
limits of social or individual benefit, on the one hand, — 
what are, on the other, the hazards of injurious operation, — 
appertaining to the reciprocal influence of mind over mind ? 
All animated things about us are instinct with the love 
of knowledge ; colleges, schools, lyceums, associations for 
the dissemination of learning, abound ; to possess and cul- 
tivate the liberal and useful arts, — in a word, Instruction, 
is the distinguishing quality of a state of civilization, as to 


6 


neglect or be without it is the familiar indication of low 
and brutish barbarism. Ignorance, it is tritely said, 

11 Ignorance is the curse of God, 

Knowledge the wings with which we fly to heaven.” 

Is this true ? Is knowledge identical with virtue ? And 
if it be not, what are the qualifications needed, to reduce 
the popular estimation of Instruction to a just standard ? 
Grant that the neglect or absence of Instruction be 
rightly deemed the characteristic of a state of barbarism : 
is not a highly cultivated society prone to form an exagger- 
ated conception of the value, or an erroneous judgment of 
the ends, of Instruction ? 

Understand me: I am not about to lend myself to the 
poor paradox, that the propagation of knowledge tends to 
corrupt the morals of a community, to give new virulence 
to vice, and augment the commission of crime. On the 
contrary, I propose to illustrate what seems to me the true 
answer to such depraved opinions, by discrimination of the 
genuine uses of Instruction. Most readers are aware of 
the controversy excited in France by the doctrine of 
Rousseau’s celebrated prize-essay, to the effect that the 
re-establishment of science and art had proved prejudicial 
to the moral purity of modem Europe ; nay, more, that it 
was essentially in the nature of knowledge to check the 
growth of virtue. However learnedly or ingeniously this 
position was maintained, it failed, of course, to gain foot- 
hold in society. Pyrrho might prove the non-existence of 
matter ; Berkley and Hume might tread in a similar path of 
metaphysical subtilty ; still, as in their case, so in that of 
Rousseau, common sense revolted from the absurdity of 
their conclusions by whatever plausible reasoning attained. 
To believe that savage life was better or happier than civil- 
ized ; to persuade men to abandon the refined enjoyments 
and elevated occupations of civilization, and betake them- 


7 


selves to the mere sensual existence of the man of the 
woods, — was of course impossible; and this extreme view 
of the subject passed off, as it well might, for the misguided 
ingenuity of a “ self-torturing sophist.” But then came 
another idea equally chimerical, that of the perfectibility of 
the social system through the agency of mind upon mind, 
as argued by Condorcet. This doctrine, also, had its day ; 
and while thinkers are settling down in the conviction that 
change and vicissitude are the lot of nations as of men, 
they are in general equally convinced of the capacity of 
nations, and of men composing them, for an undefined, 
though not an infinite, degree of improvement, through the 
instrumentality of Instruction. 

And to supply an obvious deficiency in the old European 
system, which, by reason of the limited number of places of 
education, admitted to them only the rich and great, or 
rather only the favored few, — the prevalent aim of our 
time, and especially our country, has been to render the 
advantages of knowledge accessible to the universal people. 
Common schools, supported by the rich for the elementary 
instruction of the poor, we have been accustomed to esteem 
as among the peculiar excellences of our institutions, espe- 
cially in the Northern States. From Germany, where it so 
generally obtains, this pervading universality of education 
was recently adopted by France. Since the new infusion 
of democratic influence into the government of Great 
Britain, in that country, also, the expediency of it has come 
up for consideration ; but there its introduction is encounter- 
ed in Parliament with plausible facts, urged prominently by 
an individual, who is himself a striking example of per- 
verted talents, and of the insufficiency of knowledge to 
communicate virtue. Cobbett’s opinion seems to differ 
from Rousseau’s in this: — While Rousseau, with indis- 
criminate and consistent zeal, affirmed the inutility, or 
rather injurious quality, of science and art in the general. 


8 


and to the whole society, — Cobbett, with characteristic in- 
consistency, reforming, radical, and plebeian as he professes 
to be, raised as he is by the uplifting energies of cultiva- 
ted Mind from the humblest condition of life, and exulting 
as he does that his advice has contributed to reduce thou- 
sands of the people of a civilized and Christian country 
from affluence or competency to want, for imputed aristoc- 
racy of character, like Eratosthenes beside the blackened 
masses of Diana’s temple glorying in perpetual infamy, or 
like Satan rejoicing with such joy as devils can feel, and as 
they only can feel, over the expulsion of our first parents 
from Eden, — this man would confine the fruits of learning 
to the rich and high-born alone, excluding the laborious and 
the poor from all access to the blessed fountains of know- 
ledge and of life. It is the confutation of this iniquitous 
theory, so totally at war with all the settled maxims of our 
national policy, and the confutation of it by plain and 
practical considerations, which constitutes the chief object 
of this discourse. 

It is obvious at first blush, and therefore may as well be 
stated at once as the solution of the whole difficulty, that 
Cobbett, like Rousseau, mistakes the inadequacy of Instruc- 
tion in certain of its branches or forms to produce a given 
result, for the quality of being essentially incompatible with 
that result. As Lord Althorpe justly replied, he was argu- 
ing, not of Education as it may and should be, but of bad 
or defective Education. Doubtless a man may be taught 
proficiency in crime. Besides, instruction in arithmetic or 
chirography, in the art of painting or sculpture, will not 
impart moral purity. How, indeed, should it ? The 
knowledge of geography is not the true perception of moral 
truth. Granted. But are they inconsistent one with an- 
other ? Does the acquisition of knowledge necessarily pre- 
vent or check the acquisition of virtue ? That it does, and 
this by the operation of a fixed law of nature, is the fallacy 
at the bottom of all the sophistry in question. 


9 


Let me elucidate this point by analysing the elementary 
parts of Instruction or Education. It is not unfrequently 
distinguished, in a scientific use of terms, into physical, as 
applied to the body, and moral, as applied to the mind ; 
but it may be more convenient at the present time, and 
equally clear, to use the word moral in its popular sense, as 
distinguished from intellectual. Instruction in seminaries of 
education, it is apparent, is chiefly applied to the formation 
of the mind, as thus contrasted with the character or moral 
feelings ; to communicate sets of facts, processes of reason- 
ing, arts, or accomplishments. But is not the character, 
the aggregate of each one’s opinions and principles, a por- 
tion of the intellectual being of the man ? May not good 
opinions, right principles, be imparted by instruction, as 
well as the knowledge of historical facts, or skill in the ex- 
ercise of a liberal art? Not that our intellectual and moral 
peculiarities are wholly the result of Education. Far from 
it. Inborn differences in the force of the various capacities 
and tendencies of men are the subject of every day’s ob- 
servation ; and to deny their existence is to reason against 
the most familiar facts of life. But is there any ground to 
maintain that, of these various capacities or tendencies, 
those which belong to what are popularly known as charac- 
ter or virtue, are any less susceptible of cultivation or de- 
velopement than those which belong to the department of 
genius or intellect ? Surely not. And yet the false opin- 
ions under review presuppose that instruction is absolutely 
limited to science, learning, and the arts. Those opinions 
assume that moral culture is, and can be, no part of Educa- 
tion. 

It is curious to observe how the same questions recur 
upon men from time to time ; and how continually we 
travel over and retread anew the same field of dispute 
in successive ages. That profound thinker, John Locke, 
insisted, in his day, upon this capital object of Education, 
2 


10 


moral cultivation. “It is virtue, then, direct virtue / 5 he 
says in his Thoughts concerning Education, “ which is the 
hard and valuable part to be aimed at in education, and not 
a forward pertness, or any little arts of shifting. All other 
considerations should give way and be postponed to this. 
This is the solid and substantial good, which tutors should 
not only read, lecture and talk of, but the labor and art of 
education should furnish the mind with, and fasten there, 
and never cease till the young man had a true relish of it 
and placed his strength, his glory and his pleasure in it . 55 
To the same effect is Lord Karnes, who says, in his Hints 
on Education : “ It appears unaccountable that our teach- 
ers, generally, have directed their instructions to the head, 
with very little attention to the heart. From Aristotle 
down to Locke, books without number have been compiled 
for cultivating and improving the understanding, few in 
proportion for cultivating and improving the affections . 55 
And so Milton, also, in the very outset of his Letter on 
Education, premises that, “ The end, then, of learning is 
to repair the ruin of our first parents, by inquiring to know 
God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imi- 
tate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest, by possess- 
ing our souls of true virtue, which, being united to the 
heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection . 55 
And these are the suggestions of the truest and most prac- 
tical wisdom not less than of venerable names and exalted 
authority : considerations, which have entirely escaped 
those, who so much depreciate the uses of Instruction in 
the improvement of society. 

But let us examine the particular arguments for the new 
theory of the injurious effects of popular education, as 
given to us by its promulgator. Mr Roebuck introduced 
into the House of Commons a motion for inquiry into the 
means of establishing a system of National Education; 
which he carefully described as designed to cover moral 


11 


and religious, equally with intellectual, cultivation. Mr 
Cobbett objected to the motion absolutely and unequivo- 
cally, on account of, as he alleged, the injurious effects of 
instruction upon the laboring classes ; and Lord Althorpe 
replied, defending the general object contemplated by Mr 
Roebuck.* 

In Mr Cobbett’s remarks, we find four distinct proposi- 
tions maintained, or suggested for consideration. 

First, it is alleged that contemporaneously with the dif- 
fusion of Education, crime has increased ; and thereupon it 
is argued that Instruction has not been productive of any 
good, but rather on the whole of evil, implying that it has 
tended to produce the alleged increase of crime. 

Secondly, it being stated that, of convicts in New York, 
a majority are educated persons, by which is probably in- 
tended persons possessed of elementary school instruction, 
it is inferred that Education has done nothing toward pre- 
venting crime in America. 

Thirdly, it is urged that Instruction is calculated to in- 
spire the poor with sentiments unsuited to their condition, 
and thus to render them unfit for the laborious uses of life. 

Fourthly, the expense to the community, in the time ab- 
stracted from labor in the process of educating a child be- 
longing to the laboring classes, is objected. 

As to the last argument, it needs but a moment’s con- 
sideration : because, if education be intrinsically injurious 
to the poor, it should be discarded for that cause, and there 
is no occasion to inquire into the expense of imparting it; 
and if it be beneficial to them, then it is simply a question 
whether the amount of benefit, either to the individual, or 
to society through him, be sufficient to justify the expense. 
In the latter alternative, we may justly tax the rich for the 
education of the poor ; both on selfish principles, for the 


Extracts from the debate, June 3d, 1834, as appended to this Discourse. 


12 


general security of society, and of the rich as the part of it 
most needing protection ; and also on the same principle of 
humanity, which dictates the establishment of penitentiaries 
and hospitals at the public charge. 

But the other considerations deserve to be maturely ex- 
amined. If they be true, it is important for us, in this 
country, to understand it ; because here popular education 
obtains universally ; it is one of the favored means of 
improving the people and sustaining our democratic in- 
stitutions ; and if we are mistaken in this, we are indeed 
fallen into a most fatal career of misgovernment. — 
On the contrary, if they be not true, and if the errone- 
ous belief in them arises from a partial misconception of 
the uses of Instruction, or imperfection in its forms, then it 
behoves us to seek out and apply the proper remedy for the 
evil. And therefore let us look at the details of the gen- 
eral position, which is : that the education of the poor, by 
rendering them discontented with their condition of life, 
induces habits of idleness, or of indisposition to laborious 
occupation, and so prompts to the commission of crime as 
the means of subsistence. 

Doubtless it is true that Education instils into men a de- 
sire to rise above the condition of menial servants ; and the 
gentry of England may have found the fathers of the last 
generation better servants than their sons of the present 
generation. But this effect naturally flows from every 
cause, which tends to raise the condition of the poor. It 
is occasioned, not more by the dissemination of knowledge 
among them, which opens to them higher conceptions of 
the ends of life, and sentiments of personal independence, 
than by the increase of wages connected with the pros- 
perity of productive industry in any of its departments, 
such as the profits of commerce or manufacture, and the 
abundance and cheapness of lands. These circumstances 
tend to soften the distinction between master and servant, 


13 


by facilitating the rise of the latter to personal respectability 
and competency ; but they do not of themselves induce to 
the commission of crime or immorality. Nay, on the other 
hand, it is infirmity of character, which tends to throw per- 
sons back into a secondary or dependent condition in life. 

Then supposing it to be the fact in the case of England, 
that intemperance, theft, and other descriptions of vice and 
crime have increased among the poor within a few years, is 
popular education the cause of the increase? Clearly, 
there is no necessary dependence of vice or crime upon 
knowledge. And there is ample cause, independent of 
that, for the prevalence of vice and crime in England at the 
present time ; such as the long duration of peace, the low 
price of labor, the overcrowded state of the population, the 
weight of taxation, and the consequent difficulty of pro- 
curing subsistence ; and above all, from the greater publicity 
given to crime, and the greater care in bringing it to pun- 
ishment, produced by the increasing diffusion of knowledge. 
There is much reason to believe it is the increase of crime 
only in appearance, that is, of convictions, not of crimes, 
which forms the subject of so much speculation and study 
at the present time. And, if it were otherwise, instead of 
arguing that Education had produced this state of things, 
we would be disposed to argue that, but for education, 
there would have been a still greater amount of crime and 
immorality; and that the real mischief was insufficiency in 
the quantity, or imperfection in the quality, of the edu- 
cation. True, Education has not prevented the perpetration 
of crime. And why? Independently of the essential in- 
firmity of everything human, is it not because of the 
prevalent error, that instruction is the communication of 
knowledge, rather, than the promoter of virtuous character ? 
That good character is necessarily to ensue in the cultiva- 
tion of knowledge? 

Prior to the time, when the supposed increase of crimi- 


14 


nality in England attracted observation, the true state of the 
case, — the evil and the remedy, — were briefly alluded to 
in the very useful book on the Police of London, as follows: 

“ Knowledge, so far as it refers to human actions, teaches 
to discern good from evil, and obviously directs and induces 
us, from self-love, to seek the one and avoid the other. 
But from the knowledge now sedulously diffused as popular 
instruction, we anticipate no injury whatever, and certainly 
no great benefit ; much of it will never reach those for 
whom it is benevolently intended ; and if it did, their lot 
forbids, without a previous change in their condition, that 
they can be able to appreciate and enjoy its objects, 
pleasures, and advantages. Of teachers of science we 
have abundance, of morality very few : yet the former is 
little more than the art of gain, the latter of happiness. 
Unless popular education include morality as well as sci- 
ence, it cannot be said to operate either as an instrument or 
preventive of depravity ; it is simply an engine of power ; 
and whether converted to evil or good, depends on impulses 
derived from other sources.”* 

The statistics of crime afford us yet surer aid in the for- 
mation of a correct judgment in this matter. On occasion 
of the riots, which pervaded the agricultural districts of 
England during the closing months of the year 1830, the 
state of education among the guilty peasantry became a 
topic of inquiry, and the result is given as follows, in a for- 
eign publication of authority : j* — 

“ Debasing ignorance prevails to an extent, which could 
not be credited, were it not verified by the closest investi- 
gation. The facts which have been elicited respecting the 

* Treatise on the Police and Crimes of the Metropolis, (1829) pp. 226, 
227. 

t Report of the British and Foreign School Society, quoted in American 
Annals of Education, vol. iv. p. 254. 


15 


moral and intellectual state of those counties, which have 
been disgraced by riots and acts of incendiarism, are truly 
affecting, and yet they are but a fair representation of the 
actual state of our peasantry. We call ourselves an en- 
lightened nation, and educated people ; and yet, out of 
nearly 700 prisoners put on trial in four counties, up- 
wards of 260 were as ignorant as the savages of the 
desert : they could not read a single letter. Of the 
whole 700, only 150 could write, or even read with 
ease; and in the words of one of the chaplains to the 
jails, nearly the whole number were totally ignorant with 
regard to the nature and obligation of true religion.” 

It is quite preposterous to pretend that Education had 
any influence in augmenting crime amid a population thus 
brutally debased and ignorant. There is, however, an as- 
certained effect of the diffusion of knowledge upon crime, 
which is well stated in another foreign publication.* 

“ In Russia, where education can scarcely be said to exist, 
out of 5800 crimes committed within a certain period, 3500 
were accompanied by violence; while in Pennsylvania, 
where education is more generally diffused, out of 7400 
crimes, only 640 were accompanied by violence, being in 
the proportion of one twelfth of the whole, instead of three 
fifths, as in the former case. Thus the only ascertained 
effect of intellectual education on crime is to substitute 
fraud for force ; the cunning of civilized, for the violence of 
savage life. Nor would even this small change be perma- 
nent. A highly intellectual community without moral 
principles and the habits of self-denial which religion im- 
poses, would only prove a sleeping volcano, ready to awake 
every moment, and overthrow those very institutions under 
which it had been fostered. To increase the intellectual 

* Scottish Guardian, quoted in American Annals of Education, vol. iv. 
p. 255. 


16 


powers and enlarge the knowledge, of a man devoid of 
principle, is only to create in him new desires, to make him 
restless and dissatisfied, hating those that are above him, 
and desirous of reducing all to his own level ; and you have 
but to realize universally such a state of society to fill the 
cup of the world’s guilt and misery to the brim.” 

These views, tending to explain the exact influence of 
civilization, or intellectual cultivation, upon the spread of 
crime, are confirmed by all the criminal returns in England. 
Thus it appears by the Parliamentary Returns, that of 14,947 
convictions in England in 1832, so many as 10,130 were 
for simple larceny, and only 544 were for crimes coming 
under the head of daring and forcible violations of public 
order. And in the facts of the violent crimes, there is, on 
the whole, an absence of the outrage and cruelty, which 
used to be their concomitants, showing a progressive miti- 
gation of the old ferocity of the uneducated populace. 
This fact is more strikingly true of the civic than of the 
rural population, in regard to which the result of social im- 
provement in London is said to be this :* — 

“ All those descriptions of criminals, who were wont to 
inspire the greatest terror, have not indeed been entirely 
extirpated, but have at least been forced to withdraw from 
the systematic pursuit of their lawless courses. A burglary, 
a robbery on the highway, a murder, still occasionally occurs ; 
but those bands of marauders, who used to make our streets 
and roads constantly unsafe at certain hours, are broken up 
and no longer exist. The law, which was formerly kept in 
check by those ruffians, is now master and keeps them in 
check. The substitution of this state of things is an im- 
mense gain. It is a step forward in civilization. The 
practical benefit of the change, — that which we feel every 
day and every hour, — is not to be told. We move about 

* Companion to the Newspaper for 1833, p. 65, 81. 


17 


every where without dread or danger. No man, generally 
speaking, dreams of the chance of being either murdered, 
or knocked down, or robbed, of being exposed to injury 
either in person or property, while passing along the public 
street or the king’s highway. The robberies, and assaults, 
and murders, that are still sometimes perpetrated, take place 
out of sight, in remote and lonely situations.” 

Not long after the discussion of the subject of educa- 
tion in the House of Commons, the same question came up 
in the House of Lords, in connexion with the subject of 
Prison Discipline, (June 29, 1834.) Lord Wharncliffe, in 
stating the fact that instruction did not of itself diminish 
crime, was careful, with a practical good sense and candid 
consideration, the reverse of the shallow dogmatism of Mr 
Cobbett, to confine himself to the kind and degree of edu- 
cation hitherto introduced into England : — in which view 
of the subject Lord Melbourne and Lord Brougham concur- 
red, while they maintained the general utility of united 
moral and intellectual education.* 

In France, also, the topic has undergone discussion, in 
books and in deliberative assemblies , and the statesmen of 
that country have arrived at the true solution of the ques- 
tion. MM. Dupin and Lucas have shown that in France, 
as in England, the higher crimes, those accompanied by 
brutality and violence, and proceeding from the revengeful 
and licentious passions, are lessened as we become more 
civilized and enlightened ; whilst petty crimes against pro- 
perty will increase relatively, and it may be absolutely, as 
the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the accumulation of 
capital, become prominent features of society.-)* In making 
provision for moral and religious training, as a part of the 
new system of universal national education, which the 
French have lately adopted, they have shown their per- 

* See extracts at the end of the Discourse. 

t Encyclopaedia Americana, Crime. 

3 


18 


ception of the evil to be remedied, the deficiency to be 
supplied, in order to render Instruction an effective agent 
of moral and social elevation. On the other hand, the 
French Commissioners, MM. de Beaumont and de Tocque- 
ville, in their work on the Penitentiary System of the 
United States, fall into the common error of treating 
instruction as merely the acquisition of certain rudiments 
of learning ; and thence draw injurious inferences as to the 
utility of Education ; which are very conclusively refuted 
by the American translator, Dr Lieber.* 

So much for the argument founded on the relative state 
of crime and of Instruction in Europe. As for the case of 
New York, that may be shortly dismissed. In a community 
or country, where all the inhabitants are taught to read and 
write, it must needs be that the criminals also possess those 
qualifications. The fact, that they do so, proves, as in the 
other case, simply that Instruction has not absolutely put an 
end to the commission of crime ; that, unaided, or as at 
present conducted, it is insufficient for the prevention of all 
crime. Besides, a very considerable portion of our criminal 
population is composed of hardened men self-exiled from 
other countries ; by whom the most daring and systematic 
acts of robbery or burglary have usually been committed. 
And those among them, who could not read, are probably 
for the most part the off-scouring of the jails, and the refuse 
of the alms-houses of Europe. 

These considerations, it may be, are didactic, dry, unin- 
teresting ; but there is no alternative, in discussing this part 
of the case, between being very plain or very superficial ; 
since it is a point of statistical explanation, unsusceptible of 
rhetorical ornament. Assuming the view thus presented to 
be just, let us now regard its application to the United 
States. 

The superiority of the people of the United States, at 

* Penitentiary System in the United States, pp. 63, 247, and Int. p. xxv. 


19 


least of its free population, to Europeans in general, in three 
things, — liberality of political institutions, general diffusion 
of knowledge, and moral cultivation, — we will, as we 
safely may, take with us in the outset. 

Look first at our political institutions. We continually 
speak of them in general terms ; and the name, the aspira- 
tion of Liberty issues habitually and spontaneously from 
our lips ; and free government, a government of the peo- 
ple and for the people, is ever present to our thoughts ; and 
we ought all to appreciate the unrivalled blessings of our 
happy lot in the possession of republican institutions, which, 
however ill they be sometimes administered, or whatever 
imperfections there be in some of their parts, are yet in 
themselves such as no other land enjoys. But we do not 
understand, we cannot estimate, the extent of the evils in 
government and legislation, which paralyze the industry of 
so many fertile regions of Europe. 

Take an illustration of this in the case of a country so 
fortune-favored even as England, where the discussions, 
connected with, and consequent upon, parliamentary reform, 
have yet forced upon our attention so many corruptions in 
her political system : — the oppression of the corn-laws and 
tithe-system in England, — the iniquity of the disabilities 
so long imposed upon Catholics, — the double tax for the 
support of two religions in Ireland, — the unbearable mis- 
ery of the manufacturing and agricultural poor in both 
islands, — the universal sacrifice of the laboring classes to 
the privileges and perquisites of the nobles, the gentry, the 
clergy, and the office-holders. Still, how far is England 
above Spain, Germany, Russia, if not above France, in the 
liberality of her political institutions ! But why look deep 
or seek far in quest of illustrations of this point, when one, 
the best of all, lies before us on the very surface of society. 
In parts of Europe, it is penal to possess arms, without a 
license, because the governors cannot trust them indiscrimin- 


20 


ately in the hands of the governed ; here it is penal not to pos- 
sess them ; and the contrast affords most cogent proof of the 
state of social freedom relatively in Europe and America. 

O fortunatos minium, sua si bona norint ! 

Happy, thrice happy should we be, did we never wan- 
tonly dash from our lips the cup of happiness and pros- 
perity ! 

Look, secondly, at the intellectual condition of the peo- 
ple of the United States, or at least of New England. 
Here, every body acquires the elements of knowledge at 
our common schools; lecture-rooms and lyceums abound 
on all hands ; elementary publications for the purposes of 
instruction in the rudiments of learning are accessible to 
the whole world ; and all the higher branches of informa- 
tion, religious teaching, moral wisdom, literary cultivatiori, 
are within the reach of the humblest individual in the land. 
Let me illustrate this position, also, by plain intelligible fact, 
instead of leaving it upon the trust of naked assertion. 

There exist, in all countries, national usages, established 
modes of doing the most ordinary of things, which are 
pregnant with inference touching the points on which 
they bear. Here, the great abundance and extreme cheap- 
ness of newspapers are sufficiently evident ; and without 
pausing to reflect on the subject, we could scarce do justice 
to the value and amount of intelligence, which the diurnal 
press affords, penetrating as it does through all the relations 
of life. Spread forth before you that familiar sheet. As the 
eye glides over its crowded columns, it takes in at a glance 
what volumes of fact gathered from the very ends of the 
earth, and multiplied in how many forms of communication 
by the richest and grandest of human inventions ! In it, 
are single lines, a name even, which, speechless to the gen- 
eral eye, yet pours a tide of gladness, or deadens the very 
life’s blood, in the bosom of many a fellow creature. The 


21 


solitary wife sits by her domestic hearth ; as the infant 
prattler climbs on her knee, how thinks she of him, the 
cynosure of her heart’s affections, far away along the great 
deep, tempest-tossed it may be upon its foaming surface, or 
perchance sunk “ lower than plummet can reach,” beneath 
its devouring waves ; — and what rapture will not a simple 
word, meaningless to all beside, impart to her eager gaze ! 
And how many hopes he buried forever in the brief record 
of deaths, which that sheet contains; what a world of 
emotions and sufferings will not the imagination enter, if it 
follow up the scenes of sorrow, coupled with each of those 
unregarded names ! Half a dozen lines chronicle the re- 
sult of a battle fought in the mountains of Biscay or 
Navarre, or by the lemon-groves and vine-covered hills of 
Santarem. Call up the scene to your eyes ; think of those 
about to meet in mortal conflict before you ; the flash and 
pomp of advancing squadrons ; the deep earth sending up 
the tramp of their hosts, and the roar of their cannon to 
the sky ; and the lifeless thousands of brave hearts and gal- 
lant spirits that lie low upon that stricken field ; reflect on 
crowns there to be lost and won, and the happiness or 
misery of millions of men hanging on the fearful issue of 
victory : — and then how changed is the interest em- 
bodied in a single cold half-read paragraph. I suggest 
these obvious considerations, merely as indicating the 
real, but unestimated, importance of those daily gazettes, 
which here every body reads, every body buys, every body 
has in his family as among the common conveniences 
of life. But how is it with this great source of intelligence 
elsewhere ? In England, the great political newspapers are 
an expensive luxury, which people in general read only 
in news-rooms and coffee-houses, or hire by the hour, as is 
the established custom in London. That is, there are indi- 
viduals, part of whose daily trade and business it is, to let 
newspapers by the hour, just as books are hired from a cir- 
culating library. 


22 


Again. Here, in New England, every man can read and 
write. At least, the exceptions to this are so few, that if 
in the course of business you encounter a person who can- 
not read and write, you may safely presume that he is not 
a native of the country. Whereas, in Europe, the common 
accomplishment of writing is but sparingly possessed by 
the laboring classes, so much so, that, as in the East, the 
business of writing for hire is a stated occupation of indi- 
viduals in the cities and large towns, in many parts of the 
Continent ; and little cabinets or offices are seen, where the 
public writer receives his customers : — So much inferior is 
the school condition of the general mass in Europe. 

Look, in the third place, at the better moral and religious 
condition of the people of New England ; — at their more 
correct observance of the ordinances of religion ; at their 
free-handedness in the support of public worship, which 
although, in the existing state of the law, it is chiefly spon- 
taneous, far exceeds that of other countries in aggregate 
amount of benefaction ; at our peaceful and tranquil Sab- 
baths, which, elsewhere the world over, if we only except 
a part of Great Britain, are consigned to idleness, riot, vice, 
and violence ; — look at all, in short, of pure, and peculiar, 
and admirable, and exalted, which distinguishes the moral 
aspect of New England. I say New England, because 
there, pre-eminently, is the fact apparent, and because in 
Virginia, Carolina, and elsewhere at the South, the exis- 
tence of negro-servitude is a deadly blight upon the social 
and economical condition of the country, weighing down 
its prosperity, corrupting the morals of its people of every 
class and color, and condemning it to long endurance of 
public evils, which are the more melancholy to observe on 
account of the extreme difficulty of discovering how or when 
the source of them shall cease to exist. Nor do I allege the 
mere fact of prosperity as such, — the physical well-being 
of our population, in all that relates to the influence of 


23 


clothing, shelter, food, and other necessaries of life, or the 
animal health and strength ; for this flows in some degree 
from the cheapness and abundance of lands, the conse- 
quent high price of labor, and the general profitableness 
of industry, in all parts of America as compared with 
Europe. 

But the political, intellectual and moral condition of the 
United States, which I have thus dwelt upon, — so peculiar 
in itself, so strongly contrasted with that of other great and 
powerful nations, — whence then, does it spring? What 
is that potent principle, manifest in the character, conduct, 
and history of our fathers, and so efficacious in moulding 
the destinies of their sons, out of old materials building up 
this novel and original people in the New World ? Undeni- 
ably, it is the peculiar circumstances of our extraction and 
colonial origin, the ancestry we possess, and above all the sys- 
tematic combination of moral and intellectual instruction in 
their schools and colleges, w hich serves to account for much 
that is excellent in our national manners — for the high tone 
of moral and religious feeling, and the general activity and 
industry of condition, and the wide diffusion of intelligence, 
which characterize the people of New England. Our 
fathers were not armed adventurers, stimulated by the 
lust of gold or ambition of conquest ; but men of deep- 
seated moral purposes, flying from persecution at home, to 
found in the wilderness of the New World a state after 
their own hearts ; bigoted, doubtless, like all men of high- 
souled and single-minded enthusiasm of resolve ; but withal 
well-informed beyond the ordinary rate of their country- 
men of the same class, and honorably distinguished for a 
correctness of moral deportment, a devotedness to the 
duties of ^religion, and a self-relying thriftiness of temper, 
which have made the appellation of Puritans, originally 
applied in scorn and derision, to become at length a name 
of pride and glory. Such, it is matter of obvious remark 


24 


and familiar conviction, are the distinctive traits, which 
have descended to the inhabitants of the Eastern States. 
Have we sufficiently reflected how far causes, truly similar, 
although apparently different, have stamped a general con- 
formity of character upon the people and institutions of the 
whole United States? 

True it is, that the Puritans, the commonwealth’s men 
and religious independents of the times of Hampden, Pym, 
Vane, and Cromwell, are the marked and predominant sect, 
among the primitive people of the British Colonies. True 
it is, that in the public schools founded among us, in the 
houses of religious worship built, in the great struggles of 
liberty conducted through years of suffering and bloodshed 
to a successful issue, and in the constitutional governments 
established, theirs was the consistent spirit of enlightened 
and indomitable independence, which gave life and soul to 
the efforts of the United Colonies. True it is, also, that 
the enterprising sons of New England have sown themselves 
as it were broadcast over the whole Continent, transporting 
the blessings of common schools, of universal religious 
instruction, and of industrious activity, along the bright track 
of their advance into the farthest West. But they stood 
not alone, oh no, they stood not alone, by the sacred altar 
of freedom, when they pledged their lives, their fortunes, 
and their honor, in their country’s cause. Protestants, 
driven into exile by the intolerance of their Catholic breth- 
ren in France, had come to find themselves a refuge and a 
home in New York or Carolina ; Catholics, forced abroad in 
like manner by the intolerance of their Protestant brethren 
of Britain, had planted themselves in Maryland : — testify- 
ing, by the community of their suffering and the diversity 
of its cause, that the parts of oppressor and oppressed be- 
long to no peculiar form of religious faith, to no solitary 
stream of national blood. Nay, differing still from each of 
these great denominations of men, were the Quakers, who 


25 


peopled the banks of the Delaware, and gave their own 
character of puritanism in religion and morals to the legis- 
lation and social habits of that section of the Union. And 
so many thousands of wronged and persecuted Irish, and 
of sufferers for opinion’s sake of the various nations of 
Europe, as from year to year they seek an asylum on our 
shores, — all these illustrate the workings of the great prin- 
ciple, which governed the settlement of the country, and 
which, qualified and mellowed by time, but by no means 
deprived of its native force, still pervades the social organi- 
zation of the United States. 

That great principle, the only true secret of useful 
popular education, is the simultaneous moral and intellect- 
ual institution of the people. This is the key-stone of our 
social arch ; this, the fundamental doctrine of our political 
faith : — to make the cultivation of the mind go along hand 
in hand with the cultivation of the moral affections ; whilst 
enlarging the understanding, to purify the heart; doing 
violence to no man’s conscientious religious belief, and at 
the same time, in the systems of education and public in- 
struction of whatever kind, to enforce the great moral 
truths, which belong alike to all the creeds of Christendom : 
such is the great hereditary social duty devolved on the 
descendants of the Puritans. In these principles were most 
of the Colonies settled ; in obedience to them, were our 
common schools, our colleges, and our parishes established ; 
in conformity therewith were the political constitutions of 
the country framed ; in and by those principles only, under 
the benediction of God, and through the united intelligence 
and purity of the people, can our liberties be sustained ; in 
the admonition of such principles are the native children of 
the soil nurtured and bred ; and to the equal enjoyment of 
the blessings they ensure, do we welcome the adopted 
citizen, provided he takes care to bring with him the same 
pure and noble moral purposes which our fathers brought, 
4 


26 


when, like them, he claims a refuge in America from op- 
pression and injustice in Europe. 

Of mere intellectual instruction, however, there are certain 
general effects, which it is impossible to deny. Such is its 
tendency to diffuse in society the spirit of freedom, although 
not seldom degenerating into licentiousness ; and to aug- 
ment the comforts of life through inventions or discoveries 
in useful art : — that is, in accelerating the general march of 
civilization. In addition to these general effects of mere in- 
tellectual instruction upon the social condition of mankind, in 
civilizing it, refining and elevating it, and augmenting the 
comforts and conveniences of life, it clearly has a moral effect 
in civilizing, refining and elevating the individual character. 
Or, as Addison phrases it, Education, “ when it works upon 
a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and per- 
fection.” It gives men the faculty at least of judging 
between right and wrong, if it do not give them the disposi- 
tion to use it. He who is intellectually well-informed, can- 
not but say, Video meliora proboque ; although he do add, 
deteriora sequor. All the fine-spun sophistry of Rousseau 
in objection to this, had been refuted, eighteen hundred 
years before it was written, in Tully’s beautiful Oration for 
Archias. The Genevan maintained that the pursuit of 
knowledge corrupted the manlier virtues of courage, pat- 
riotism, disinterestedness. Not so, said the Roman. It 
were, indeed, too much to affirm that those great men, the 
lights of their time, whose virtues are held up to us for im- 
itation in the records of the past, were uniformly learned 
in all the teaching of books. Confess we, that many there 
have been of excellent spirit and virtue, and who without 
education, by a sort of divine institution of nature herself, 
have risen to moral dignity through their own inborn 
resources. Nay, be it admitted that nature more frequently 
achieves glory and virtue without learning, than learning 
without nature. But, at the same time, when, to a distin- 


27 


guished and illustrious nature a due proportion and con- 
formation of teaching is adjoined, then there is used to 
result a singular and surpassing perfection of greatness ; as 
is the case of one divinely endowed of our fathers’ time, Pub- 
lius Africanus.* And the expressions which thus literally, 
with scarce a change in the place of a word, I transcribe 
from the pages of Cicero, are commended to our approba- 
tion by every argument of common sense and of universal 
experience. 

But Instruction, intellectual Instruction, is not of itself 
sufficient to assure the moral purity of society ; and to com- 
pass this, we need to develope and follow out the principle 
of conjoined moral and intellectual education descended to 
us from the Puritans. Late events have shown us that, with 
all our intelligence, our morality, our sense of and respect 
for the force of religion, we slumber in false security. On 
the surface, the aspect of society is bright and smiling ; the 
loveliest flowers and the richest fruits of refined life are 
ours ; the fabric of our greatness lifts its proud battlements 
to the skies, and pushes down its foundations deep into the 
everlasting hills ; but the fires of disorder and corruption 
are smouldering beneath our feet, and may burst forth upon 
us at an hour in the earthquake voice of destruction. So 
far as writing, teaching, acting, may avail, there devolves 
upon us the duty of counteracting and conjuring down the 
troubled spirit of disorganization ; of drying up the sources 
of evil and opening new fountains of good ; of seeking 
to infuse into society not only liberal knowledge, but also 
sound moral and religious principles. There is, in the 
heart even of our purest cities, a crusade preaching against 
the very existence of social order, a war waged on all we 
most value in our national institutions, of religious, moral, 
social and political. The crisis calls loudly on the for- 


* Ciceron. Orat. pro Archia, c. 7. 


28 


bearance and virtuous feeling of every member of society ; 
but there be classes of individuals, having pre-eminent 
capacity of usefulness. They are, 

In the first place, all men of moderate means, who are 
looking to acquire a competency in life by their skill or 
application to business. These have particular cause to 
reprobate a disorganized state of society ; because such 
men, with their families cannot fail to be among the first 
victims of any great social convulsion. At such crises, 
the very rich may transfer their wealth to foreign funds, or 
during the early stages of change employ it in profitable 
usury at home ; the very poor have nothing to lose ; but all 
intermediate classes are crushed and swallowed up in the 
vortex of national calamity. Doubtless the apostles of 
the new political faith hold up an equal distribution 
of property as the lure of their school. If it were to 
be so, it would be to purchase a small temporary good at 
the price of a great permanent evil. But such a distribution 
would never take place. Suppose a social revolution to 
be impending in this country. What would be the practi- 
cal effect of such a thing in prospect ? Capital in specie, 
ships, merchandize, would speedily fly to other lands ; what 
little gold or silver remained at home would be concealed 
in the earth ; manufactures, the mechanic arts, the business 
of transportation, commerce, would gradually dwindle 
away to the bare prime necessaries of life ; canals, rail- 
roads, buildings, and other fixed improvements, would come 
to naught ; and of course under such circumstances, when 
destruction did but lay the weight of her hand upon the 
moneyed capitalist, she would tread into the dust all those 
who were engaged in the pursuits of productive enterprise. 
For them, little would be left but the desperate trade of 
civil war. 

In the second place, the new social schemes which are 
abroad, and the pestilent doctrines of their school, demand 


29 


the deep indignation of the female sex, and of all, who, as 
fathers, as husbands, or as members of society in whatever 
relation, value the dignity and purity of that portion of the 
human race, which is given us for the ornament of life, 
its exquisite solace, its truest pledge of happiness, its lever 
of moral elevation, but which may be perverted into its 
degradation and its curse. It is a point susceptible of dis- 
tinct and irrefragable proof as matter of history, that the 
social respectability of woman, exclusively proper to the 
countries of Christendom, is directly ascribable to two pecu- 
liar doctrines of Christianity, namely, the equal participation 
of woman in the external services and the spiritual sanctions 
of religion, and the singleness and sacredness of the mar- 
riage tie. Resting upon these two positions, we may safely 
challenge the world in argument. What, then, shall we 
say of creatures claiming to be reasonable, appealing to us 
for sympathy, and for extraordinary legal immunities, who, 
not content with levelling both sexes to the condition of 
brutes by impeaching our spiritual essence, would sink 
woman lower yet in moral debasement? What shall 
woman herself say to it? Woman’s exalted social rank 
in all the countries of Christendom, her more especial 
and pervading personal influence in the United States, 
is altogether the consequence of her moral beauty of char- 
acter, her delicacy, her refinement, her sensitive dignity 
of feeling and understanding. Strip her of them, and she 
is uncrowned of her diadem, dethroned from her queenly 
state, ungirded of her magic cestus. Shame on the 
shallow sophistry, if sophistry it be, and not rather mis- 
creant profligacy, which labors to this bad end ! Every 
principle of good order in society, every sentiment of truth 
and honor in the heart, recoils at such miserable profana- 
tion of the great gift of reason. For woman herself, so far 
as regards the general right feeling of the sex, we cannot 
fear : 

A thousand liv’ried angels lacquey her, 

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. 


30 


Still it behoves all and each of us in his appointed sphere 
of life, that we look well to this indiscriminate assault on 
religion, virtue, and property ; so that public indignation 
may stamp its authors with the burning brand of infamy 
and scorn. 

Finally, to all professional teachers, whether literary 
or religious, the times appeal that they come in aid of 
the laws by their instruction and their authority. And if 
a layman might presume to utter counsels to such ears, it 
would be to urge on them the great paramount obligation, 
at the present time, of tempering in all things the vexed 
waves of society, and pouring upon them the oil of concili- 
ation and fraternal peace, rather than of breathing into the 
bosom of the tempest a single added breath of agitation. 
It is too clear a case to argue. They play a desperate 
game, who give themselves up to fratricide contention in 
the face of a common foe. Whichsoever of them gains a 
victory, his will not be the triumph. Be it unitedly our 
endeavor to sustain the law ; to change it by lawful means 
if it err ; and whatever it promises to protect, that so 
long as the promise holds good, faithfully to protect. 
And as Christians, presuppose not ill of the Greek and 
Roman Churches, the early recipients, and for fifteen 
hundred years the sole depositaries and conservators of 
Christianity. 


APPENDIX. 


[Extracts from a debate in the British House of Commons, June 3d, 1834, 
on a motion of Mr Roebuck, Member for Bath, for a Committee to inquire 
into the means for establishing a system of National Education.] 

No. I. — pp. 11. 

Mr Cobbett said : — He rose for the purpose of making a few 
observations on the scheme of the hon. and learned member for 
Bath. He could not help fearing that his scheme would not be 
productive of good. On the subject of education in this country, 
it was not philosophy or reasoning that could guide, but recourse 
ought rather to be had to experience. Everybody knew that 
within the last thirtyfive years Lancasterian and other schools 
had been founded, and education had increased twenty fold, but 
experience showed that the morals of the people had not 
mended with the increase of education. It had even been 
admitted that night, that drunkenness had increased wonder- 
fully within latter years, so that education did not even 
prevent drunkenness. He repeated that all this increase of 
education had not been productive of any good, and he 
ventured to say that there was not a single country gen- 
tleman who j would not say that the fathers of the last gene- 
ration made better laborers, better servants, and better men, 
than their sons of the present generation. This proved that 
the laboring classes were much better without that intellectual 
enjoyment, which the hon. and learned member for Bath was 
anxious to increase to them, than they were with it. What 
also was the state of crime in England and Wales now, as com- 


32 


pared with its amount at the period the education of the lower 
orders of the people began ? Why, the proportion was now at 
least four if not seven times as great as it was when education 
commenced. 

[An hon. Member here said : ninefold.] 

Mr Cobbett resumed. — So much the better for his (Mr C.’s) 
argument. Within the same period, too, the number of illegiti- 
mate children had increased to a prodigious extent ; so that in 
this respect the morality of the people could not be said to have 
been advanced by education. The hon. and learned member for 
Bath hadconteuded that the system of education in this country 
was wrong altogether, and had instanced, as an example worthy 
of imitation, the state of things in New York, in America, where 
he had said half a million of human beings were educated, and 
in the full tide of enjoyment of intellectual matter. He would 
tell the hon. and learned member the state of things in the 
district on the condition of which he relied. He (Mr Cobbett) 
had written to New York for information, since the subject 
was under consideration last year, and he had received an 
account signed by the Recorder of New York, which, though 
he had it not now with him, he would produce tomorrow to the 
hon. and learned gentleman. This account embraced a com- 
parative statement of the number of educated criminals and 
the number of uneducated criminals, and showed a very con- 
siderable majority of the former over the latter. So much for 
education preventing crime either in America or England. It 
was a good people, and not a gabbling people, that was wanted 
in this country, and this smattering of education would only 
raise the laborers of this country above the situations best 
suited to their own interests and those of their families. It 
would put into their heads that they were not born to labor, 
but to get their living without it. By the plan suggested by 
the hon. and learned member for Bath the child of the laborer 
could not complete his education until he was at least fifteen 
or sixteen years of age ; but in the mean time he should be 
glad to know who was to keep a great eating, and drinking, and 


33 


guzzling boy — who was to find him with provender all that 
time ? Who was to satisfy his body while his intellects were 
being filled ? The hon. and learned gentleman had said, that 
the laborer’s boy was to receive instruction after the day’s 
labor is over ; but if the hon. and learned member knew any- 
thing of labor, he would rather prefer going to sleep. In 
short, if all were to be scholars, it would be necessary for the 
whole population to shut their mouths and determine to eat no 
more. The interference with labor would be the very worst 
course which could be pursued by the Legislature. 

The consequence of putting the children of poor people to 
school would be to keep them from work ; children were never 
too young for work. He had two boys under seven years of age 
now in his employ to keep the birds away from the corn, and 
each of them received half a crown a week. This was of some 
consequence to their fathers ; it was gaining money to them. 
If you send the boys of poor people to slip-slop school-mistresses 
— if you send them to a drunken school-master — or, if you send 
them to a conceited coxcomb school-master, they would not. 
keep birds away from the corn, but would run and shelter them- 
selves under the hedge when the rain began to pelt.* They 
would be brought up with such high notions, that there would 
be no use of them whatever. For these reasons, therefore, he 
objected to any system of national education, and he would 
oppose the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman. 

No. II. — P . 17. 

(Extracts from a debate in the House of Lords, June 29, 1834.) 

Lord Wiiarncliffe said : “ There was another plan which 

had been tried with a view of producing reform in the great 
mass of the people ; and that was education. He confessed he 
was one of those, who thought education would have greatly de- 
creased crime. He regretted to say that he was disappointed. 

* I insert Mr Cobbett’s speech with all its tissue of coarseness and 
ribaldry upon its head, as the best means of showing the inconsistency 
and poor prejudices of the man. 

5 


He believed that the kind of education which had been afforded 
had increased crime; and the more he saw, the more he was 
convinced of that fact. He did not doubt that the general sys- 
tem of education was very valuable for some purposes; but he 
very much doubted if the present system gave to the individuals 
who were subjected to it, such a power over their minds as 
enabled them to resist the temptation to commit crime. In sup- 
port of this opinion the noble lord referred to the report of the 
French Commissioners on the state of education in the United 
States. Those Commissioners declared it to be the result of 
their inquiry, that the more knowledge was diffused the more 
crime was increased. This they attributed to the circumstance, 
that knowledge created wants among the humbler classes, which 
the perpetration of crime alone could gratify. Knowledge 
multiplied social relations ; it produced a desire for social enjoy- 
ments ; and the means of cultivating those relations, and indulg- 
ing in those enjoyments which could not be honestly obtained 
by the lower classes in their present condition. Such was the 
opinion of the French Commissioners. He was very much 
afraid that those gentlemen were right and that the greater the 
diffusion of education in the country, the greater was the 
temptation to crime. He by no means doubted that a proper 
discipline of the mind in youth was highly advantageous, but 
he very much doubted if the mere acquisition of knowledge as 
such, was so. Of this he was certain, and he said it with re- 
gret, that the kind and degree of education which had hitherto 
been introduced into this country had not had the effect of 
diminishing crime.” 

Viscount Melbourne said : “ It was true, as his noble friend 
had stated, that this increase of crime had taken place during a 
period w r hen the greatest exertions were made to improve the 
moral condition of the country. This had been stated by his 
noble friend with great candor and moderation ; but in other 
places it had frequently been stated with great bitterness, and in 
the shape of a taunt. It had been asked what had the Church, 
what had our schools, our mechanics’ institutes and societies, 
done for the moral improvement of the people ? This was not 


a fair way of reasoning. It was necessary to consider what 
these persons were graciously pleased to leave out of their con- 
sideration, — the strength of the antagonist forces against 
which they had to strive. Neither ought the increase of popula- 
tion to be forgotten. It was to be expected that more crime 
would be committed by a larger than a smaller population ; and 
it should be remembered also that if crime had increased, the 
country had greatly increased in wealth, luxury, indulgence, 
and extent of desire, which were the real causes of and instiga- 
tions to crime. It was against these antagonist powers that the 
moral forces of society had to contend, and considering their 
potency, he thought they had kept their ground pretty well ; 
nor was it to be made a charge against them that they had not 
produced what, in such a state of society, was an impossibility, 
viz. perfect purity and virtue. His noble friend had said that 
he did not perceive that any of those advantages had resulted 
from education which had been anticipated, nor did he expect 
that any of those advantages would flow from it in future. But 
his noble friend had not made any distinction between educa- 
tion and the objects to which it was directed. The object of 
education was the diffusion of knowledge, and knowledge, as 
they were justly told, was power. But power of itself was 
neither good nor bad, but beneficial or disadvantageous, accord- 
ing as it was used or applied. Knowledge itself did not secure 
virtue, and they knew, by melancholy examples, that the posses- 
sion of the highest mental endowments, and the most cultivated 
intellect, did not save the possessors from the stains of immor- 
ality and vice. Bonis Uteris Greeds imbutus bonarn mentem 
non induerat. The effects resulting from education must de- 
pend on the nature and objects of the education. If the educa- 
tion given were such as to give the lower orders opinions above 
their situations, and to impart to them a distaste for labor, it 
would be the most fatal and destructive gift which could be pre- 
sented to them ; an apple from the tree of death. But if 
the education given to them were such as to teach them the 
necessity of labor, and of conforming themselves to their situa- 
tions in life, he could have no doubt that education, based upon 


36 


such principles, and conducted in such a manner, would be pro. 
ductive of the most advantageous result. 

The Lord Chancellor was sorry to stand in the way of 
his noble friend; but, from the situation in which he stood, he 
should not think that he was well discharging his duty if he did 
not make a few observations on a subject so very candidly, with 
so much moderation, with no exaggeration, and with so much 
philosophical calmness, brought before the House. His noble 
friend, who had introduced this motion, was of all individuals, 
in or out of that House, the one most capable, if the profession 
of the law had more opportunities than any other, of seeing the 
working of our system of criminal law, from his situation as 
chairman of the west riding of the county of York. It was 
very possible that the diminution of crime had not borne that 
proportion which sanguine men expected to the progress of im- 
provement in society. But this circumstance ought not to fill 
them with despair, with apprehension for the future, or regret 
for their past efforts, or even make them disinclined to continue 
those efforts in the same direction. The question in this case 
was rather an abstract one, and did not appear to lead directly 
to any practical result. It was, whether or not the increase of 
knowledge, the more general diffusion of it amongst all classes 
of the community, tended to prevent the commission of crime? 
He was far from being able to come to the conclusion which had 
been somewhat more dogmatically stated than he should have 
expected, in the report of two French gentlemen sent out by the 
French King, that it was now universally admitted that those 
parts of the world where knowledge was most diffused were not 
the most exempt from crime, but rather the contrary. Who ever 
expected that increasing the knowledge of the community 
would immediately and directly have the effect of diminishing 
crime? Whoever did entertain such an expectation had no 
right to complain of disappointment, when he found the effect 
did not follow his meritorious labors, because he had formed 
groundless and unreasonable expectations. The tendency 
was to improve the habits of the people, to better their princi- 
ples, and to amend all that constituted their character. Princi- 


37 


pies and feelings combined made up what is called human 
character. And that the tendency of knowledge was to amend 
this character by the operation of knowledge, and in proportion 
to its diffusion, there could be no doubt. Its tendency was to 
increase habits of reflection, to enlarge the mind, and render it 
more capable of receiving pleasurable impressions from, and 
taking an interest in, matters of other than mere sensual grati- 
fication. This process operates likewise on the feelings, and 
necessarily tends to improve the character and conduct of the 
individual, to increase prudential habits, and to cultivate, in 
their purest form, the feelings and affections of the heart. Now, 
he took these things to be so pregnant, that it hardly required 
any illustration from fact, or any demonstration from reasoning, 
to show that the inevitable consequences of such a change in 
the human character must inevitably diminish crime. The 
effects of knowledge were not new ; they were well known to 
the ancients, who had said the same thing in much better 
words : — 

“ Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.” 

Knowledge increased the prudential habits and improved the 
feelings and disposition. That it was the tendency of education 
to diminish crime was not matter of argument, but of fact. Let 
any man go into the gaols, and examine into the condition of 
the criminals, whether they were well educated or not; and he 
was perfectly certain that the well-educated would be found to 
form a very small proportion indeed of the criminals under ap- 
prehension, and smaller still of those under conviction. But 
the way in which this mistake had been committed was this, 
that in reference to this question knowledge and education were 
too frequently confounded. It often happened that what was 
taken for instruction and education was merely the first step 
towards it, and many persons were considered as educated, who, 
in reality, were possessed of nothing worthy the name of know- 
ledge or instruction. Reading, writing, and accounts had, 
during the last thirty years, too often been held to imply educa- 
tion. A person possessed of these might, indeed, have the 
means of educating himself; but it did not, by any means, 


38 


follow that he would exercise those means. It was too much to 
assume that, because in the agricultural districts, where fewer 
means of education existed, crime was not so abundant as in 
the better educated and most thickly populated manufacturing 
districts, therefore education had no influence in diminishing 
crime. * * * * No one ever said that 

reading meant instruction and education; still less did any one 
ever say that reading alone would produce the effects of instruc- 
tion. His noble friend, who spoke last, and who had spoken 
so eloquently, had entirely expressed his views. Knowledge is 
power in whatever way it is used, but whether that power wilj 
be available to virtue depends on the kind of education which 
has been given. If a people be educated without any regard 
to moral instruction, it is only putting instruments into their 
hands, which they have every motive to misuse. But it was said, 
why does not education put a stop to the commission of crime ? 
Education certainly exercises a great influence over the moral 
character, but he never yet heard it asserted that knowledge 
would alter the nature of the human being, or convert him into 
something of a higher or purer order than the ordinary race of 
mortality. His noble friend had made some remarkable statis- 
tical statements, and it appeared that more crimes were now 
committed in eight months, than formerly in twelve ; but, had 
the increase of population been taken into account 1 But was 
it not to be expected that the criminals would be more numer- 
ous in a population of 14,000,000, than in a population of 
7,000,000 or 8,000,000 ? Within less than a century the popu- 
lation had doubled. Within the last ten years, or rather in the 
calculations made from 1821 to 1831, the population of Eng- 
land and Wales had increased two millions. Surely it would 
not for a moment be expected that an increase so great could 
have taken place without a consequent increase of crime. There 
were other elements at work beside the increase of population, to 
which the increase of crime was to be attributed. The defects 
in our legislation had a direct tendency to create crime. * * 

He hoped he had said enough to show the necessity of taking 
into account the counteracting causes which operated to prevent 


39 


the extension of knowledge, from producing the effect which, 
but for these obstacles, its promoters had calculated upon. 
When the contemplated reformations should take place, then 
would be seen the improvement which would follow in the train of 
knowledge. On one good result of education there would be no 
difference of opinion. There was one class of offences which 
varied in extent and degree exactly in proportion with the degree 
of knowledge which obtained in any community, and here it 
was to be observed, that knowledge was not in itself a cause of 
virtue, for the mind may be improved without any improvement 
of the disposition, and then knowledge may have the effect of 
making the mind, which was possessed of it, more active in a 
wrong course, and more powerful in evil; but it was evident, 
that in proportion to the learning of a country, crimes of vio- 
lence became more rare. This was obvious in France, and 
equally so in this country, although crimes of fraud and larceny 
had not thus decreased in similar proportion. 




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